printed tissue guard copy: “Things like to be planted just so they can grow”

Essay: How Things Grow

“THINGS like to be planted, just so they can grow. Everything wants to grow. A flower will grow, that knows it is only going to live a little while, and a morning-glory will scramble up the wall, and is so glad to be alive that it will burst into bloom every morning. It just shows you that it is natural for things to want to grow.
Boys are a good deal the same way. They can hardly wait till they grow big enough to wear long trousers, and then when they get to be men they grow sorry they are growing old so fast. But, then, it doesn’t really matter about growing old, if we grow in other ways, if we grow in wisdom and kindness and and patience and strength like those sturdy old oaks that stand in front of the old farmhouse. The finest sight that a man can look at is some old oak tree that has stood the storms of fifty years and still holds out his great sheltering arms of green as if he would bid you come and rest under his protecting shade.
It is natural for everything to grow, even money. We speak of people as growing rich, because the natural course is for money to accumulate or grow. Money grows in the bank just as naturally as a tree grows in the ground. But if you don’t plant the sapling you naturally can’t expect to have a tree, and if you don’t begin to put your money aside you dan’t ever expect to have any surplus; because surplus is the unused part of your daily earnings, and the man who earns a little and saves a little will have more at the end of any given period than the man who earns a great deal and saves nothing, which doesn’t require any argument to prove.
If there is any moral in this, it means “Begin to save to-day.” The Rochester Trust and Safe Deposit Company invites your account and pays 4 per cent. interest on deposits.”